What is the purpose of mosquitoes and what would happen if mosquitoes went extinct? Would any ecosystems or the food chain be drastically affected if mosquitoes became extinct suddenly
Mosquitoes are one of the most annoying creatures in the world. Like me, you may have wondered what good they are to the world and what would happen if they all just suddenly disappeared?
Mosquitoes are the deadliest animal in the world. They certainly aren’t the scariest, but they have killed more people than any other animal by a long shot. This is mostly because they pass along diseases such as malaria and zika from person to person, causing the person they bit to contract that disease. Because of that, many diseases would likely dissipate and fade away, eventually dying out. This would save many lives, as countless people have died from mosquito-spread viruses, like malaria. Overall, the extinction of mosquitoes would save countless future lives
If mosquitoes disappeared, this would also affect the environment, and more directly, the food chain. Mosquitoes are part of a lot of food chains, with them being food for many birds, insects and other wildlife. For example, mosquitoes make up almost 3% of a purple martin, the largest North American swallow. This would be a smaller effect of the extinction, and the main effect would be that many people’s lives would be saved in the future due to the diseases that mosquitoes carried fading away. While those diseases wouldn’t completely die out, they would be contracted by far less people without mosquitoes to carry them around.
Like me, a bunch of you guys probably wish all the time, especially in the summer when those annoying pests won’t leave you alone, that mosquitoes would all just disappear. If they did, that would save countless lives, and also slightly affect the ecosystem.
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